DIOGENES: In Search Of An Honest Politician!

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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Occupy America! Citizens storm the Barrycades !

Could this be the end of Monument Syndrome? Across the country, ordinary Americans are rising up in revolt against the old Washington tactic of closing public parks and memorials during selective government “shutdowns” to score political points. Tax-paying tourists are tossing off the orange traffic cones and “Barrycades.” Enough is enough.

The movement started with waves of World War II veterans who flew to D.C. last week as part of the Honor Flight Network. (The nonprofit group brings our surviving heroes to visit the memorials that honor their service and sacrifice.) The vets and volunteers breached the fences last week, exposing the tone-deaf tactics of President Obama’s Spite House. Honor Flight visits continue this week, and more vets vowed to defy the cynical closures.
They are not alone. At Gettysburg National Military Park, tourists broke through barriers and posed for pictures on the battlefields with notes reading, “Catch us if you can.” One visitor reported that motorists formed impromptu caravans as rangers chased them.

“Strength in numbers,” they tweeted.

At Mount Rushmore and in the Badlands of South Dakota, families barreled over hazard cones. Their photos went viral on Facebook. In Wisconsin, GOP Gov. Scott Walker defied the National Park Service and opened state parks that Obama-crats wanted closed because they receive some federal dollars.**snip**The explanation for this ridiculous Obama obstructionism can be summed up in one word: Control.**snip**For decades, taxpayers were passive pawns in this gamesmanship. No more. Monument Syndrome, R.I.P.

Democrats won't win a 'blame the GOP' game on the shutdown and debt ceiling

Consumer confidence is crashing. If the economy goes south because of default fears, President Obama will be the big loser.
So, people currently blame the Republicans more than anyone else for the government shutdown, but predicting the long-term political fallout is not as easy as that suggests. For one thing, the latest CBS News poll shows that while slightly more people believe the Republicans are at fault, a majority of them are upset with both sides for the inability to avert this crisis.
The real story is not revealed by people's view of the politicians; it's contained in the indices of economic sentiment. Gallup finds that Americans' confidence in the economy has dropped like a rock, from -20pt just before the shutdown, to -35pt now. And it would not be surprising to see that measure continue to fall over coming days, with the deadline for raising the debt ceiling looming in ten days' time.
What we're seeing is a time-lag in consequences for the politicians. Gallup has President Obama's approval rating still within its normal range of 45%, plus or minus a few points.
But remember the debt ceiling battle of April to July 2011: the politicians solved that crisis without the US actually defaulting, yet the mere idea of a default hurt tremendously. S&P downgraded the United States' credit rating, while Gallup's economic confidence rating fellby 30pt, to -55.
Regardless of whom the public blamed for the 2011 crisis, President Obama's net approval rating did drop, by up to -4.3pt, per the Real Clear Politics average. True, that was not a catastrophic fall, but consumer confidence tends to be a leading economic indicator; it moves before the rest of the economy does.
Sure enough, Obama's net approval rating didn't bottom out until the end of August 2011....